NASA finds proof of carbon and water in asteroid Bennu samples

Subject: Science and Tech

Section: Space science

Context:

Initial studies on the samples collected in space and recently brought back on earth from the asteroid Bennu under the OSIRIS-REx mission have shown evidence of high-carbon content and water-bearing clay minerals, according to a statement by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
The practice of retrieving samples from space began in 1969 with NASA’s Apollo 11 mission, the first to land astronauts on the Moon. Many more sample-gathering missions to the Moon and beyond followed, growing in ambition with each passing decade.

Asteroid Bennu:

Bennu is a small near-Earth asteroid that passes close to Earth every six years.
It is a 4.5 billion-year-old relic of our solar system’s early days.
Bennu’s current composition was established within 10 million years of the formation of our solar system.
OSIRIS-REx:
- The Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security-Regolith Explorer, better known as OSIRIS-REx, is the first United States mission to collect a sample from an asteroid. The spacecraft was launched on September 8, 2016 and the sample was collected three years ago.
- The landing site on Bennu was named: Nightingale.
- The material collected from the asteroid can help us answer big questions about the origins of life and the nature of asteroids.
Computed topography helped the team create a three-dimensional computer model of one of the particles, highlighting its diverse interior, which provided an early glimpse of evidence of abundant carbon and water.
NASA will preserve at least 70 per cent of the sample at Johnson Space Center in Houston for further research by scientists globally, including future generations.

Other space missions that brought back the samples to earth:

Hayabusa-1 and 2 missions of Japan (JAXA) brought back samples from asteroids Itokawa and Ryugu, respectively.
China’s Chang’e 5 mission brought lunar samples back in 2020.

Source: DownToEarth